March 24, 2016- ISSN# 1545-2646
Time to Unplug
In a society where it is hard to drive a mile with out looking at or listening for your phone, we need to unplug to gain a sense of who we are and what is left of who we are.
Day in and day out our time is being requested by many people and many things. Somehow we have become slaves to all of these other things demanding of us rather than us taking control over those things.
I will watch other cars at the stop light and notice how many people are actively engaged in the activity of doing something with their phone. Yes they might very well be not texting (which is the correct thing) while driving but upon stopping for a light, they feel compelled to look and interact with these smartphones so they don’t miss out on some small piece of someone else’s world. I will admit that I’m one of them currently. It is not so much that I’m checking any of the social media outlets such as Facebook or Twitter or even on the business side of things LinkedIn but more email from business colleagues or text messages from clients. I’m making a conscious commitment to try to actually rest and gain composure when stopped vs. having this feeling of guilt if I don’t respond immediately to a text or email.
I can actually say that the other day I drove for not quite 2 hours and did not even pick up my phone to look at it or listen for it to ring. As simple as it sounds, it was quite the challenge and began to reinforce the need for all of us to unplug from time to time.
Technology is a great thing and I’m right at the forefront of seeing the need and value for leveraging it in business. On the other hand it has begun to deaden our senses of what is going on right around us.
I was at a dinner function and the table next to us was primarily made up of younger generation people. At one time just following the meal, all 8 of them were not talking to one another but they all had their smartphone out and were interacting with the device rather than talking to their fellow colleagues. Maybe they did not like the people they were seated with but I don’t think that was the case. The device had control over them and they all joined in on the action. It therefore made it acceptable and began to establish the norm for the table.
This week I challenge you to taking some time away from your technology umbilical cord and get some actual interaction between and with your staff. I’m not talking about structured meetings or things of that nature but go out and directly interact with them. Get a dialogue going which is not a telephone call or email or text thread.
I suspect you will find that it is not as easy as it appears to be. We have gone so far to hiding behind technology that we don’t necessarily have the same skills we once had for striking up a conversation.
No wonder on line dating is sky rocketing. You get to use a medium to filter out possible dates only to discover the date was lousy because neither one of the participants could talk to one another let alone remember what they said about themselves on their ad.
Give it a try this week and you will find out just how much your team is missing their face to face communication skills.
Wondering about how to get your teams to develop skills outside of their thumbs. Give JKL Associates a call at (313) 527-7945.
Questions or comments – email us at partners@jklassociates.com or call our Office at (313) 527-7945
Copyright – JKL Associates 2016
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